tvashtarkatena

Yeah, AKA, I suspected you didn't know shit about the detainees at Gitmo. I don't really give a shit about who you've run into in Iraq; that's not what you were talking about, and that's not what I responded to. You specifically stated that the detainees at Gitmo were not citizens of the country they were captured in (all of them?). It was one of your typical fire-one-off-despite-not-knowing-fuck-all comment...with the mandatory mention of your boots-on-the-ground experience, as if that somehow makes you an expert in all matters pertaining to the War on Terror. Take Gitmo; a place you've never been and obviously not bothered to learn much about, despite copiously flapping your well exercized jaws about it. Any time you're called on your bullshit, such as I've just done, you try a feint by dropping another irrelevant battlefield reference, maybe with a stupid hippie comment or two. Predictable and unimpressive. Amazingly, you're also apparently unaware that Common Article 3 does apply to the folks you yourself claim to capture. Fuck me, you don't even know your own job. I guess I should add incompetent to the list.

Every human being on the planet should have the right of habeus corpus. That's the kind of world I'd like to work towards.

You know, she's actually getting better looking. Maybe I'll sprinkle in a little face to face with the butt sex next time.

No they don't kev. They are not soldiers. They are not citizens of the country they are captured in. Serenity alluded to the reason that Gitmo was created. The soldiers that we fought previously, even in Vietnam, wore uniforms. These don't. They do not abide by the Geneva convention. By carrying out war activities while not wearing a uniform, they are infact war criminals. So what to do with them? What would you do kev? Personally, I don't like the idea of Gitmo, but we are kinda stuck with it. Gitmo makes their hatred of the US worse and it is pretty un-american. What else do you do kev? I know what you will say. Pull out. We all wish your father would have, but that obviously didn't work then and it isn't gonna now. I'd like you to give us a list of names, country captured in, and nationality of the detainees at Gitmo, because, frankly, I don't believe you know your ass from a hole in the ground in that department, despite your claim that you know this information. Second, as I stated previously, protections under Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions and our anti-torture statutes apply to all detainnes in U.S. custody. You can argue with the Supreme Court on that one, but them's the rule of law of the country you claim to be a citizen and public servant of. In addition, and I don't expect you to understand the principles here, Common Article 3 applies to all battlefield captives from through convention and practice. Finally; you've claimed that war criminals shouldn't be tried. Tell us, why not?

It's not possible for supporters of torture and abolishing habeus corpus to produce arguments that don't also indict their own cause. Bringing up these 5, for example, raises the issues of a) why their trial started so recently 8 years after capture and b) why there are only 5 Gitmo trials happening at all out of nearly 300 prisoners. Furthermore, if one examines these cases, and I have, one quickly realizes what a complete clusterfuck the military commissions system, under which these men are being tried, is. For example, several of these men confessed so that they could be martyred, but the head of military commissions reported several months ago that it may not be possible to legally levy the death penalty under the commission system. The main problem is that the proceedings have used evidence gained under torture (yes, the head of the military commissions system has publically acknowledge that they were tortured (her words), so save the bullshit semantics about whether or not waterboarding etc should be called). It's questionable whether or not the trials will continue at all due to that little complication. If they cannot continue, the enemies of habeaus corpus and friends of torture will blame the 'liberals', rather than the rule of law prohibiting torture, which has been around for more than half a century, and the right of habeus corpus, which is actually more than a thousand years old. That's what happens when a bowl full of idiots get together and try to re-invent 1000 years worth of criminal justice in an afternoon so they can stack the deck against a particular group of defendents for political purposes. "Get me some fucking terrorists; here's a pile of cash". Well, we got a pile of 'em all, right, and right quick, too. Gee, how'd that happen?

Zee Chuhmans. Zay do haff a history mitt firearms.

As I stated; we imploded because of our 'anything goes' mentality; the one behind Iraq, deregulation, and the current financial crisis. We've failed because of our shitty set of values. We partied like rock stars, now we get to enjoy the hangover. According to the NSE shortly after 2001, our stated, official national goal was to dominate the world in no uncertain terms. Unipolar moment, unitary executive and all that.

The democrats came very close to winning that election. The GOP's problems are somewhat more systemic and long term; 30 years of strategy coming home to roost in a world where all the rules have changed.

Not to get lost in the details, but we're on the verge of bankruptcy, as well. We shot our wad trying to dominate the world, using Iraq as our Science Fair project, we failed, we imploded because of the 'anything goes' mentality that motivated the invasion in the first place. I don't see many new foriegn adventures in our future any time soon. Frankly, I'm glad we've been defanged. We're not wise, responsible, competent, nor moral enough to wield the kind of power we've squandered our national treasure on.

The capacity for atrocity exists roughly equally among all human beings. We tend to think of Americans as being somewhat better on this scale, but we're not. A mild mannered insurance salesman will happily bulldoze bodies into mass graves or wipe out a city when given the order to do so. This is precisely why the rule of law is so important. Unchecked human judgement is a recipe for a world full of violence and sorrow.

There are two main problems with Gitmo: the loss of habeus corpus and torture. Without habeus corpus, a prisoner may be imprisoned, as nearly all of the remaining Gitmo detainees have, indefinitely without being charged with a crime. Governments who employ such tactics can make people dissappear at the will of one person. In our case, that would be the President (or, when so designated, the Attorney General). The loss of habeus corpus is the heart of totalitarianism. Torture provides a convenient means with to extract whatever quick confession a government needs to continue to claim the righteousness of such tyranny. National security is invariably the reason given for continuing it. The most common justication I hear for the adoption of such totalitarian policies by the U.S. is the 'unlawful combatant' argument; opponents captured without uniforms and so called non-state actors should not be afforded basic human rights established by the Geneva conventions Article 3 and other statutes. This argument has not held up in court, largely because treaty obligations such as Article 3 have been afforded combatants by the signatories by convention and practice; both of which are common and established means of putting treaty language into practice. The two main problems with this 'non-uniformed combatant' designation is that 1) any citizen the State deems to be a combatant would fall under the non-uniformed category and b) a majority of combatants in the wars raging today do not wear uniforms, and many are tribal, and so could be considered non-state actors. If Common Article 3 didn't apply by convention and practice, most prisoners of war around the world would be afforded no human rights protections at all. A government may oppress its own people in such a manner, but such oppression is contagious. Opponents retaliate and escalate. Trading partners (China comes to mind) quietly abandon human rights progress, knowing that the U.S. no longer has negotiating leverage by way of example in that area. Allied countries are bullied into eroding their human rights protections; privacy, speedy right to counsel and trial, etc. The result is a downward spiral in human rights standards worldwide. Once habeus corpus is abandoned and torture adopted, there is not bottom as to where this can go.

How do you gentlemen feel about this woman? Do you desire her? If so, in what way?

I would argue that our political system is similarly challenged, but perhaps its the best human beings, being the dumb herd animals that we are, are capable of.

I'm a firm believer that karma is one of the basic principles that determines what the future looks like. Human beings, being herd animals, are both reciprocal and easily lead. Reciprocity can be positive or negative, but tit for tat is definitely our daily bread. The herd follows these trends, magnifying them. A society can follow the rest of the world into a black hole or help lift it up; neutrality is impossible. Gitmo has and will continue to have far reaching and long lasting ramifications, virtually all of them negative for all parties. I don't see the point in working towards the kind of world Gitmo seeks to create.

Town Hall Seattle, 7:30, this Wednesday there's a one hour talk on what Obama should do with Gitmo. $5 at the door. The science and politics lectures at Townhall are usually good.

Oh, I assure you, we have zero concern for your party. Watching it sink under the waves, hemorraging from its uncountable self-inflicted wounds has been one of the supreme pleasures of my life. Discussing what the GOP should do to regain some of its lost popularity is only entertaining because we know that the party will do exactly the opposite. Remember, this is a party unable to navigate the problems of the real world.

Seems like compelling evidence that Gitmo is, in fact, a very effective terrorist recruiting tool. Either that or that this detainee was Taligan before Gitmo, which would point to a failure of both U.S. intelligence and military commissions; the system that was supposed supposed to try and punish such people. (Note on that system; it's charged only a handful of the more than 1200 original detainees at Gitmo after 8 full years...and never convicted any of them). Anyway you look at it, such events only serve to illustrate why Gitmo has been a bad idea all along. Unless the poster's point is that we should lock up everyone in the world in case they are inclined to do something bad in the future, but it's been hard to determine exactly what this poster's recommendations would be concernting Gitmo other than to throw the Constitution and rule of law to the wind, as Somalia and other coutries have done with somewhat less than satisfactory results.

Holland has a significantly lower rate of hard drug addiction than the U.S., and a massively lower rate of prescription drug addiction. She's not Dutch, though. And that's not all she isn't.

She's German.

Discuss....

More things the Reps could be doing: Getting behind sustainable policies for once (so they can point out that the bail out is clearly not that) Dropping their love affair with no-questions-asked military spending (see above). Getting behind a health care system that covers everyone. We're the last civilzed nation on earth to do so. Come fucking on. The current system is, by nature, cruel. What would be so bad about letting folks in on the federal employees program? Commit mass suicide.

2 vehicles augered deep into the center divider...on the uphill lane. One van practically made it to the downhill lanes. And, of course, the gridlock parking lot for the way down. Get it right, lads, get it right.

That stage would have worked well in "Triumph of the Will" Well, the RNC considered this set, but decided that it had too much potential for offending height challenged Druids.

Welcome to the Planet of the Angry, Furless Monkeys

I'm as old as dirt. Are you planning on outlasting dirt? While you're in here spraying, Charlie's out there getting stronger....